The waste problem has been an issue for years now in Rotterdam. The municipality nowadays collects waste less quickly: "It's just like with adolescents, the more you clean up after them, the more casual they become," says alderman Bert Wijbenga. Robert Dur, Professor of Economics of Incentives and Performance at Erasmus School of Economics, explains in a mini lecture at Studio Erasmus whether this is really the case.
The waste issue
Robert Dur starts off by saying that governments sometimes make a policy that brings about something positive. But once in a while you implement a policy which only makes the situation worse due to the way citizens and businesses react to it. There are a few things that seem to bother the residents of Rotterdam, number one being the waste issue. People claim the waste containers don’t work or that they would be full or clamped and that’s why they leave waste at the side of the container on the street. Striking is that often the containers turn out to be fine, giving people no incentive to leave their garbage bag on the street. So, where does it go wrong?
Two conflicting theories
Dur has two theories that shed light on this question. On the one hand the neoclassical theory. The streets are a public good, so there's a role for government intervention. But the government should not intervene too much, because with every step the government takes, citizens and companies take a step back. According to this theory, cleaning up a lot makes the people lazy. The second theory states something contrary and originates from the fields of psychology and behavioral economics. They claim that a dirty environment attracts more dirt, and that a neat environment creates social norms to keep it clean. Consequently, if it's already dirty, people make it even dirtier together. But which theory is true?
A field experiment
10 years ago, Dur did an experiment together with Ben Vollaard and the alderman responsible for the waste policy at the time. In the Tarwewijk in Rotterdam, above-average cleaning was carried out. For randomly selected containers, the cleaning frequency was decreased in order to see how people would react. After the first week, it became evident that in places where there was less cleaning, approximately the double amount of waste was added, contrary to places where a lot of cleaning was done. An outcome in line with psychological theory. The experiment went on for 10 weeks, and then they gave up. People did not adjust over time and continued to add their waste to the growing pile. The psychological theory turned out to be correct.
Cleaning less, as the municipality does now, is not the solution, says Robert Dur. What we need is a pragmatic attitude and people will have to want to learn. What we should avoid is a political theatre with self-designed solutions. We must work this out together, Dur concludes.
- More information
Watch the mini lecture from Robert Dur here, 3 March 2020 (in Dutch).